Battlefield
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPLM pre-slash. Protecting Lucius Malfoy, expendable envoy, on a journey to see if the vampires are serious about an alliance with the Ministry this time is a regular day's work for Harry. Defeating Lucius's self-doubts, which for some reason he's chosen to confess to Harry, is the far greater battle. COMPLETE.


**Title: **Battlefield

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairing: **Harry/Lucius (pre-slash)

**Warnings: **Angst, violence

**Rating: **PG-13

**Wordcount: ** 6100

**Summary: **Protecting Lucius Malfoy, expendable envoy, on a journey to see if the vampires are serious about an alliance with the Ministry this time is a regular day's work for Harry. Defeating Lucius's self-doubts, which for some reason he's chosen to confess to Harry, is the far greater battle.

**Author's Notes: **Another Advent fic, written for hpjk_addict, who asked for Harry as an Auror protecting Lucius on an important trip and helping Lucius recover from whatever bad thing he's dealing with at the moment. Hope this satisfies!

**Battlefield**

"I will not succeed at this negotiation."

Harry raised his eyebrows, but kept his gaze on the trail ahead. He had to. They were on a path that, supposedly at least, led through the vampires' forest, but which was curving under ancient trees, through green walls that Harry suspected were made at least mostly of magic instead of trunks and leaves, and which had already led them on a deeper and longer journey than Harry expected. "Well, perhaps you could have told the Ministry that _before _we left?" he asked. "I don't see the point of spending my life to protect someone who's determined to die."

"I am not intending to die," Lucius Malfoy replied, coming up beside Harry. Now Harry could look at him out of the corner of his eye and study the trail at the same time. Lucius wore a grey cloak and a dour expression. He looked ahead as if the curving trail—made of brown dirt, not remarkable-looking until you glanced at the green that surrounded it—was his conversation partner. "I simply will not succeed. The vampires will refuse my offer."

"If they refuse it, they'll eat you," Harry pointed out. "That was what they did to the last negotiator."

Lucius slowly dragged his eyes away from the path and fastened them on Harry's face. "Then why does the Ministry try to open negotiations with them at all?"

"Because being able to control vampire attacks or set up some kind of an exchange with them, blood for safety, _if _we could do it, would be beneficial," Harry replied. He finally determined that the way the trail bent ahead was a natural bend, not illusion, and strode forwards. "Come on."

Lucius followed him in silence. Once he was solidly behind Harry again and wouldn't see, Harry rolled his eyes.

Yes, the vampires had caused suspicions instantly when they asked for an envoy from the Ministry. The last one, Howard Amethyst Ffaring-Gore-Booth, had been sure he could handle them, and even insisted on marching into one of their protected strongholds alone. They had found fingerbones with strips of skin still attached at the edge of the Forbidden Forest the next day. That was all.

Frankly, Harry suspected Ffaring-Gore-Booth of having insulted the vampires the instant he got inside their stronghold. It was the kind of idiot he'd been. The kind who thought that because vampires weren't human, they weren't dangerous, and you just had to know how to handle them. The sort who would have given a tiger a firm pat on the head and announced that it was a "good kitty."

Lucius was different. He had suffered enough diminishment of reputation that Harry didn't think his name had any power anymore. A sentence in Azkaban after the war, the public renunciation of his beliefs and family name by his son—_he _was Draco Black now, although Harry still found it difficult not to think of him as Malfoy—the loss of his money when most of those he'd bribed decided to confess, and now his divorce from his wife. He had volunteered for the mission so he would at least get some political credit, Harry reckoned.

Or it was a suicide mission. But Harry wasn't about to let a Malfoy's little death wish drag _him _down, too.

"I do not know where I am going."

"Neither do I, exactly," Harry muttered absently, his eyes measuring the curve of the trail in front of him. Had it been sloping that sharply a second ago? Harry didn't think so. "The vampires are warping the area with magic. They call their home the Deep Forest. I think I know why, now."

"No," said Lucius, and for a second, his voice sharpened. Harry grinned to himself and cast a spell that would reveal any illusions ahead. The whole trail glowed, and he shook his head. "I mean that I do not know where I am going in life."

"Happens to the best of us," Harry commented neutrally, and cast a spell that was supposed to find a safe path, this time. No glow came back. He groaned. "Listen, Lucius, how do you feel about temporary wings on your back?"

Lucius said nothing. Harry turned around.

The man was staring at him. Harry reviewed his responses in the last few minutes and then shrugged. He supposed Lucius was used to either sympathy or sneering when he talked about his grinding self-doubt. Harry was just trying to keep them alive and get them through the Forest. It probably stunned Lucius a little that someone could just keep talking about business as usual.

"I promise, I can play you a sad song later," said Harry. "Now, I asked a question." Most of the time, with most spells he used on bodyguard duty, he would have cast the spell and not asked the question, but this one was fairly intrusive. Harry hadn't been pleased the first time it was used on _him_.

Lucius shook his head, and at least his eyes were more focused now. "Why not a simple Levitation Charm?"

"Can't be sure what's ahead," Harry explained, looking over his shoulder again. Yes, the angle of the path had changed _again _in the last few minutes. "It's all illusion. I can't be sure where it's safe to come down again, and the Levitation Charm never lasts long when I cast it. Wings will allow us to stay aloft as long as we need to."

Lucius's face changed for the first time from a tragic blankness. There was a hint of quivering at the edges of his lips. "You can't maintain a Levitation Charm, but you can cast a powerful and delicate Transfiguration."

"That's right," Harry said, determined to play along if he had to. Lucius wasn't the first one to be surprised by this or think it was funny. "It has something to do with the power behind the spell. I put too much of it into a Levitation Charm, and the object flies straight up but then drops down right away. Wings are easier."

"That doesn't have to do with power in the spell, it has to do with—"

Harry shook his head and his wand impatiently. "Do you mind if I cast the Transfiguration on you or not?"

Lucius hesitated long enough for the path to tilt another thirty degrees, and then nodded. "You may do it," he added, when Harry stared at him, unsure of how Lucius had meant the gesture, given the question he'd asked.

Harry sighed, cast the spell, and watched as the air above Lucius's shoulders seemed to churn, becoming filled with mist, then a net to hold the mist, then a pair of giant snowflakes, and then a blossoming of feathers, as white wings drooped from Lucius's shoulders. Lucius picked one of them up and stretched it across his palm for inspection. His expression was complex when he glanced at Harry. "White? After what _I _have done?"

"It echoes the color of your hair," Harry explained shortly, and was glad to see Lucius's mouth pinch in. He probably thought his hair was still blond, not white. Harry touched the wand to his own shoulders and cast again, and this time, his own black wings trembled into being. Lucius seemed even more amused. Harry faced the illusion and flapped hard.

He rose from the ground a second later, and he heard Lucius swooping after him. Harry nodded. The wings would work on their own if the person who bore them had no idea how to fly, but Lucius must have some Quidditch instincts, or know how to trust the new impulses in his muscles.

They flew with an exhilarating whirl over the places where the path bent, over the sudden drop into a pit lined with webs and teeth, and then over what looked like a waterfall, though Harry wasn't entirely sure the stream was made of water. Then they reached a flowery glade that Harry knew was solid, because not even vampires could master that many different scents come out of an illusion. Scent was the hardest part of illusion magic to master.

"Down," he told Lucius, and he swooped. Lucius was an inch behind him when the flowery meadow erupted into a pair of reaching jaws.

_Shit! It can be real and still a trap. _Harry swerved to the side, in front of Lucius, and clasped him in his arms, sending them into a sharp tumble. Experience had taught him it was better to do things like this instead of trying to explain them.

They came out of the spin at the top of a large tree, well above the jaws. Lucius was gasping, but it was a silent sort of gasping. Harry touched him for a moment, enough to ensure that he didn't have injuries, and then asked him, "Can you fly on your own?"

"Yes. It was shock, nothing more."

Harry let Lucius go with a curious glance. He sounded better than as though he was in shock. In fact, he sounded a little more self-confident. Harry didn't know why a failure would induce that reaction, but he would be glad if it led to Lucius being a little more proactive in the future.

"Good," said Harry, and glanced ahead. They had lost the path, which might not have been the real thing anyway, with the way that it sliced through the forest and led them straight to traps. "What do you say we do this the short way?"

"There is a short way?" Lucius folded his arms, and his wings cramped for a moment in disapproval, although he had to beat them hastily the next second to keep flying. "Why were we following the path?"

"Because we were supposed to show the vampires that we came to negotiate in good faith and trusted them, and those were the directions their representative gave to the Ministry." Harry shrugged at Lucius's incredulous stare. "Look, I'm not the one that makes most of the decisions up in that hivemind. But now I'm pissed off."

He held his wand straight out in front of him. He ignored Lucius's mutters about "power" and "Levitation Charm." This was a sort of spell where his power actually came in useful, rather like the wings.

"_Invenio_," he whispered, when he had the image of what he wanted in his mind and the will to cast built up and tingling along his limbs.

The power struck out of him, a glittering white arch that splayed and broke on the trees ahead—but only for a moment. Then it thrust the trees aside, and cast the image of a diamond road through the air. Harry smiled harshly as he watched some flickers of red and black magic erupt from the ground like geysers, only to break apart when they struck the road.

"Come on," he said to Lucius, with a jerk of his head. "This won't last forever, either. They'll find it soon and come up with a way to keep it from piercing through their defenses."

Lucius was very quiet when he followed Harry. As long as Harry could hear the steady sound of wings beating behind him, he didn't think much about it, but then Lucius asked in a soft voice, "How is it that you are still an ordinary Auror on bodyguard duty?"

"I think you should be asking why they ever trust anyone _else_ with it," Harry said smugly.

"No," said Lucius, and his voice had turned inwards, as though he was inquiring of himself more than Harry. Harry wondered why he was bothering to voice the question aloud, then. "I want to know why they could possibly consider you ordinary enough, given your power and your talents, to do something like this. To possibly sacrifice your life escorting me into the heart of enemy territory."

"Ministry philosophy," said Harry, using the term that he and Ron used to refer to the highly rarified topics Ministry flunkies liked to discuss over tea. "Let's talk more about it when we're not fighting for our lives."

"I am not," said Lucius. "You are fighting for both of ours."

Harry shrugged, making his wings flap. That was the sort of thing that he didn't think needed a comment. And indeed, Lucius was quiet as they flew on through the forest, dodging other traps that reached out to them like nets, like glaciers, like flowing stream of meltwater.

Only later, when he knew Lucius better, did Harry understand what kind of an admission that had been, and why Lucius had shown some more confidence after Harry rescued him from the jaws of the meadow.

* * *

><p>The vampires lived in exactly the kind of fortress in the middle of the Deep Forest that Harry had expected. It was a curving stone castle, grown out of the ground like a stalagmite, with its windows carved into the likeness of sobbing faces and its door having fangs of stone all along the sides. The knocker was in the shape of a twisted human body biting its own shoulder.<p>

Harry had seen it all before. Some Dark wizards had similar tastes in decoration, for that matter, and so did other vampires and werewolves he had dealt before. Even that herd of corrupted centaurs last year had done it, vegetarians though most of them were. There seemed to be some law that required teeth on your décor the instant that you went Dark.

Lucius used a spell that shielded his hand like a glove to grip the knocker and bang it while Harry took away their wings. Harry looked around at the artificial shade cast on them by looming trees—at least half of which, he thought, were illusions—and resisted the impulse to snort.

The vampire who opened the door was tall and thin, and his skin so white that it glowed like salt against the background of velvety darkness just inside the door (of _course _it was velvety darkness, Harry thought). And he didn't invite them inside. He just stood there and looked at them.

Lucius waited, with an expression of patience on his face, seemingly not forced, that was good for Harry, too. He would have struck out if he was the negotiator, but then, there seemed to be a reason Lucius was the negotiator and Harry wasn't. He and the vampire and Lucius all stood there until the vampire abruptly turned his back and paced into the castle with the jerky motions of a robot.

Lucius followed. Harry stepped up beside him and wove a spell that would linger in the air until needed. Then it would create a sort of floating metal box around Lucius, on all sides except the floor. Good for rebounding sudden attacks, including the claws and fangs the vampires were more likely to rely on.

Although Harry couldn't see Lucius's face, he knew he was smiling. Well, let him.

They traveled through corridors hung with black tapestries, under dark iron sconces holding unlit torches, past doors that stood ajar like gaping mouths, and through curtains of clicking bones. It was all very impressive if you were a vampire—in other words, if you had an intellect that you dedicated mostly to deciding on your next meal. Harry made sure he concealed his yawns, though. His contempt was of a different kind than that which had got Ffaring-Gore-Booth murdered, but it could still kill.

They finally halted in front of a large stone door banded with iron, but also with a small oval window in the center of it that seemed to be made of glass and pearls, and Harry stirred himself to pay some attention. This looked important enough to actually be the end of their journey.

"The Lord of Vampires," said the one escorting them, with enough of a pause between each word to give them the general idea, and then reached out and pushed with one hand flat on the door. It opened.

_No creak, _Harry noticed as they passed through. Maybe this Lord had a different sense of style than most of the vampires, or just _a _sense of style.

Harry lost his hopes as soon as they stepped into the room. The walls and the ceiling were both hung with bones, the corners where walls _met _ceiling ornamented with skulls enchanted to chatter their teeth, and the low, hungry munching echoed perfectly the large stone throne in the center of the room, and the vampire who lounged on it, arms and legs spread out as though he'd been tossed there. But his face was white enough to be almost transparent, and his red eyes reminded Harry of Voldemort's. Harry told himself to still be ready for anything.

Lucius stepped forwards and bowed, holding the bow. Harry did the same thing, although he disliked the angle that put his eyes at relative to the rest of the room. Lucius presumably knew the proper etiquette.

"Dread Lord of Vampires," Lucius said, and he spoke the words almost like an incantation. "We would speak with you concerning the plight of our people."

_Plight? _Harry mouthed to himself, wondering what the fuck was going on here. It was the first he'd heard of the wizards negotiating from a position of weakness and not strength. On the other hand, the vampires _had _eaten the last negotiator, so maybe they'd believe it.

The Dread Lord of Vampires, as Harry apparently had to call him, leaned forwards and subjected Lucius to a scrutiny that made Harry tense. The first _instant _that he moved, then Harry would be in front of Lucius, defending him. He might not like the man much personally, but it was a point of pride that no one he protected had ever come back in less than one piece.

But for now, the vampire seemed more interested in what Lucius was offering. One hooked hand made a motion for him to go on.

Lucius did, his voice swift and smooth. Harry was glad he was the trained negotiator here. Harry could never have done half as well. Some people had tried to use him as a Ministry representative after the war. They had never tried it more than once, luckily. "Dread Lord of Vampires, our people are suffering under the reign of yours. They cry out for relief from the deadliest hunters in the world. Even coming here was an ordeal. I would never have dared it, but I am desperate and Auror Potter is brave."

Harry cocked an eyebrow, wondering why Lucius had bothered to mention that, or his name. It wasn't like Harry would ever need a favor from the vampires.

"And so, I am here, to ask you to agree to a bargain that would require registration of your kind, restraint of your kind, but offer you more willing victims in the end. Prey who would deliver themselves to your subjects, not needing the prod of your hunger or your claws in their minds. Wizards who would acknowledge their inferiority to you humbly, instead of fighting and resisting in the way that those inferior should not do."

Harry felt his eyebrows twitch again, this time in disbelief. He didn't find it convincing, but if he was on the other side of a vampire's face, obsessed with the scent of blood, deep in the conviction of his own superiority...

Then he might. Lucius was fairly good for his intended audience.

"I ask that you allow your names to be placed on a list that would indicate those vampires who are willing to receive the blood of sacrifices, to allow us to crawl on our knees in front of them instead of requiring you to leave the comfort of your lairs to hunt us down." Lucius knelt in front of the vampire lord then, lifting eyes that were almost soulful-and Harry choked at the picture _that _made-to the beast's face. "In return, those vampires would not hunt the unwilling. But the willing would come to you in droves."

The vampire lord watched them in silence for a moment. Harry had no idea what he was thinking, and he wasn't sure that he would even if the creature was showing emotion. Its face was simply so different from a human's, so tight and stiff, and the dead muscles probably hadn't moved into a smile in centuries.

Then a voice spoke, but it didn't come from those decaying lips. Instead, it spoke directly into Harry's and Lucius's minds, or so Harry assumed from the way Lucius winced and lifted a hand as if he would touch his temple. _What you have to offer is not enough._

"What would be enough, Dread Lord?" Lucius crouched down, stretching his neck out across the floor. "We would give you our blood. We would give you our peace. We would give you sacrifices. In return, we ask only a bit of breathing room, so that those who are not courageous enough to come to you would approach you when their courage grew."

_That will not happen. Wizards are too prideful. _And the voice altered, so that a boulder seemed to grow in Harry's mind and weigh down his limbs. _You will be still._

Harry saw Lucius struggling to lift his neck from the floor, only to be all too visibly bound there with no freedom of movement.

Well, fuck _that. _Harry could break the Imperius Curse as cast by Voldemort, who had to be at least as strong as this vampire. That meant he could break the boulder. And he envisioned his will as a hammer, and flung it against the boulder.

The boulder rocked but didn't shatter, and for a second, Harry thought that was the most effect he would manage to have on it. He had an effect on the vampire lord, too, though. Because he turned towards Harry, and meeting his eyes was harder than meeting Voldemort's after all.

But Harry answered with the same blind, almost senseless defiance he had used in the Chamber of Secrets. Someone wanted to kill him. He wouldn't let them. He flung the hammer again, and this time he broke the spell.

The vampire whirled and came leaping along the floor like a great jumping beetle. It was terrifying. But Harry whirled his wand around him in response and cast a circle of fire that blazed into real flames when the vampire tried to cross them. Harry was conjuring water at the same time, and he ducked low to cut a groove into the floor. Running water was one of the things that protected against vampires. Harry could use the defense to buy some time.

The vampire lord rocked to a stop, staring at him, but it could have been either the flames or the water. Harry didn't dare relax as much as he'd thought he would. He had to get Lucius safely out of this, and himself, without killing any vampires if that was possible. That could provoke a retaliatory strike against all sorts of innocent people who had nothing to do with this, because that was the way vampires were.

Harry touched his wand to the line of fire and hissed, "_Fugere_." When he stepped backwards, the circle moved with him. He couldn't do the same thing with the water, which was a pity, but he began to work his way back towards Lucius.

Lucius was still pinned to the floor with the power of the vampire lord's will, Harry saw with a glance backwards and down. That meant-

It seemed the vampire had only been waiting until he turned away his face to attack. Harry caught a glimpse of a white blur, and swung his wand again, snarling to the fire; the real spell was non-verbal, and the snarl was mostly there to warn his enemies.

The one already in flight wouldn't be warned, of course. Harry raised the flames like arms or wings, closing the vampire lord in their embrace as he tried to soar above the line of Harry's circle.

There was a shriek and a smell like burning hair. Harry smiled grimly. No, he didn't want to kill any vampires, especially their lord, but at the moment, he was grateful that vampires in general were highly flammable.

He fell back and back until he stood next to Lucius, and then he touched his wand to the back of Lucius's neck and whispered, "_Adsertor._" It was a spell that was sometimes effective against the Imperius Curse, although Harry had no idea if it would work against a vampire's spell. He only knew that he had no other real option, and he had to try.

Lucius surged to his feet and turned for a moment to track the vampire lord. _That _one had landed in a crouch behind them, and the minions around him with blackened hands told Harry who had been responsible for beating the fire out.

Other vampires were coming forwards from the darkness now. A low, massed, humming chorus was rising. After a moment, Harry understood what it was. All the vampires were growling at once, and their hands were beginning to click open and closed as if they bore scythes on their fingers.

"I suspect the negotiation is lost, and with it, my reputation," Lucius said.

Harry twitched at the regretful note in his voice. "Let's make sure your life isn't lost as well," he suggested, and urged Lucius towards the door with one hand on his back.

"Perhaps it would be as worthwhile to die here as anywhere else, instead of living with a shattered reputation."

Harry leaned in and gripped Lucius's earlobe in his free hand. Lucius twisted in agony and turned to stare at him with a look of utter surprise on his face, something Harry didn't think he'd ever seen Lucius express.

"You're going to live because I brought you here, and I _do not lose_ the people I'm guarding," Harry told him flatly. "Now move your pompous arse."

Lucius gave him an absolutely indescribable and inscrutable expression, and then turned and walked stiffly in front of Harry towards the corridor that they'd come in through. "I do not know what good it will do," he murmured, his words just audible to Harry.

Harry grinned a little. Then he focused on the vampires.

What he had told Lucius was true. He had certain spells that would fail at the oddest times. But he was powerful with others, and at the moment, he was going to use both his weakness and his strength to his advantage.

"_Incendio_," he said, and the fire burst into being on the floor at the vampires' feet. They rose from the ground with harsh cries like hunting birds, and clung to the walls. The vampire lord didn't move, though, tucking his feet beneath him and jumping over the flames the way he had soared over Harry's protective barriers before.

"_Wingardium Leviosa_!" Harry shouted, aiming his wand straight at the vampire lord, and saw Lucius whip his head around.

The spell seized the vampire lord and bore him sideways, into the fire that was now climbing the walls after the lord's subjects. There was a shriek, and Harry laughed. The charm failed a moment later, dumping the vampire lord to the floor and away from the flames, but the damage was done. The other vampires curled and cowered back, and the path was open before them.

Harry conjured wings again on Lucius's back with a twitch of his wand, and shoved him. This time, Lucius didn't need the prompting. He spread the wings and soared over the fires, straight towards the door.

Harry didn't follow him. He touched his wand to his nose and cast a spell that would give him, briefly, a sensitivity to the scents of magic.

He was dazed, dazzled, a second later by the smells that flooded his nostrils. His head went back and his nose twitched wildly. But he had used this spell before, and he had even used it around vampires before, mostly when negotiators of theirs visited the Ministry and Kingsley wanted him to sniff out whether any of them had fed right before appearing. So he separated the dusty-rock scent of vampire, and the scents of blood and his own magic, and he turned and raced straight for the ridiculous throne the vampire lord had been sitting on.

Behind him came shrieks like diving hawks, and the vampires dropped to the floor and bounded in his wake. But Harry had already located what he wanted: the artifact that empowered the illusions and other traps around the vampires' stronghold. He'd known there had to be one. No vampires retained their normal wizarding abilities after death, and that meant they couldn't cast the spells that made the glamours or anything else. It had to be an artifact.

And an artifact could be broken, at least when hit by raw magic as powerful as what Harry intended to unleash.

"_Frango_," Harry snarled, his wand striking down, and the pulsing lump of black stone, stained with silver, flew apart into as many pieces as the mental boulder the vampire lord had earlier used to hold Harry down. Harry smirked and turned around again.

Now there was just the matter of getting through the horde of vampires behind him. But he had saved the life of his charge, and that was the important thing. Lucius was smart enough to fly and keep flying, and self-interested enough to understand why Harry had done this. If Harry died, he would know he had died doing what he wanted to-

"Potter!"

_Correction, _Harry thought darkly, tossing his head back to stare at Lucius swooping overhead and attracting the attention of some of the vampires, _Lucius Malfoy is just as stupid as I always thought he was. Only for other reasons._

"Get _out _of here," Harry growled, but he knew he would be heard only by himself. Lucius dipped his wings at the vampires, and some of them were climbing the walls again, and others were crouched hungrily below.

Harry hadn't conjured up his wings yet simply because he knew that the vampires could leap, and they could climb, and it was possible that he would die in midair anyway. He had been looking for another escape route, trusting an idea to jump into his mind the way it always had in the past.

But now, he had no choice, and Lucius was staring directly at him in the moments when he wasn't busy dodging the vampires. Harry groaned, Transfigured the wings into place, and leaped.

Lucius whirled and fled towards the door the moment he saw Harry's feet leave the ground. At least he was smart enough for _that_, Harry thought in irritation, and they flew as hard as running horses towards the door.

Harry saw, almost in slow motion, the vampire lord leap from the floor itself towards Lucius. Maybe he thought Lucius was the easier prey since Harry had done most of the defending. Maybe he thought that he would hurt Harry the most if he managed to kill Lucius, which was certainly the truth, at least for Harry's professional pride.

And the spell that Harry had put on Lucius, to conjure the floating cage of metal around him, might or might not protect Lucius from being hit into the flames.

Harry put on a burst of speed and caught up with the vampire lord before he could hit Lucius. It should have been impossible, but he had always been good in the air-and the look of shock on Lucius's face as Harry shot past him and smashed into the vampire lord was worth it.

The vampire lord was powerful, but the burns had weakened him. Harry blocked him back into the wall with the force of sheer solid muscle, and then he and Lucius soared up, near the ceiling, past the champing skulls that had fallen silent the moment Harry destroyed the vampires' artifact. They were no more than harmless, ugly decorations now.

He and Lucius flew on, and there was no talking between them. There would be later, if Harry had his way, but not right now.

And on they went, and on, and the darkness of the vampires' hall fell behind them, and the Deep Forest sped past them as ordinary trees, bereft of the illusions that had made it so dangerous before. Harry took in a deep breath of cold air.

The vampires might still strike back at the Ministry for the wounds suffered by their leader, but Harry had avoided killing one, and so eliminated what would have been seen as both a public scandal and, by the vampires, a justifiable cause for war. Harry thought the Ministry ought to have objected more when Ffaring-Gore-Booth died, but at least he had done what he was supposed to do.

Including keeping Lucius bloody Malfoy alive.

Harry slanted a sideways glance at Lucius, but his face was set and he stared straight ahead, as if only the wind blowing in his eyes was worthy of his consideration. Harry shrugged. He reckoned that their conversation would come soon enough.

* * *

><p>"You are the stupidest man I have ever met."<p>

They'd said it to each other at the same time, moments after touching down in the short-grass meadow which they'd Apparated to in the first place, and before Harry could even release the Transfiguration on their wings. Harry stared for a moment with his mouth open, while Lucius snapped and closed his wings in agitation, and then he collapsed on the ground, laughing.

Lucius stalked over to him and acted as if he would kick him in the head. Harry sat up, his hand on Lucius's ankle, and shook his head.

"I acted the way I was supposed to. I saved your life," he reminded Lucius. "_You _were the one who chose to come back and act as though it was a personal inconvenience. Why did you do that?"

Lucius bent down and grabbed Harry's shoulders. Harry blinked. Lucius's hands were shaking. He must be more affected by the battle and the escape than his cool facade had led Harry to think.

"I do _not _fall into owing life-debts that easily," Lucius whispered harshly. "I know few people who would put my life above theirs, even in the name of duty." That shut Harry's rising complaints up, and he listened with more interest. "I know fewer who would save my life multiple times in the course of an hour, and in such a way that I could have flown away and left them. _You _are the only one who would not only do that but also attack an ancient artifact so that the traps that could have slowed me down dissipated."

Harry blinked at him, then reached out and gently took Lucius's left hand. "I would do the same thing for anyone I was protecting," he said. "You have to realize that."

"What I realize is that _you_ did it for me."

Lucius's eyes were deep, and for the first time, Harry thought he understood what people meant when they talked about falling into them. Lucius bent near him, so intense, so focused, so _there _that he made Harry realize something else. Many of the people he'd had under his protection had thanked him, but when Lucius did it, it was different. There was only one Lucius.

"Yes," Lucius murmured, apparently seeing what he was looking for in Harry's eyes. "Now you understand."

He held Harry's head there, his hands moving up and his fingers flickering for a few seconds as he stroked Harry's chin and brow, and then he bent down. Harry thought, for a second of hammering confusion, that their lips would touch.

Instead, Lucius extended his wings and touched the tips of those to the tips of Harry's.

Harry jolted at the contact, and Lucius smiled faintly.

"We will have to tell them about the failure of the mission," he said, and stepped fluidly away from Harry.

Harry rose to his feet, surveying Lucius closely. "You don't seem as upset about that as I thought you would be."

"I have other people to tell me that my worth doesn't depend on a single mission."

Lucius's eyes showed no intention of moving. Harry broke into a helpless smile.

He had no idea what would happen once they left the meadow. Not a single idea. But he found that he didn't mind.

Riding and surviving chaotic situations was something of a specialty of his.

**The End.**


End file.
